All that can be known is all that can be known, not all that is true.

The Quizzing Open Source

Caution:the following text is entirely based on the perspectives and ideology of Qrish and is exclusively founded on his experiences and the accidents/incidents encountered in his life within the last few months of his life .If the scuttlebutts/reflections offend any reader in any fashion,the blog and it’s possessors are not responsible.Please proceed at your own jeopardy…

Who?What?Where?When?Why?How?

Apart from being the name of our blog,these are the basic 6 questions we must ask in our life to know more about the milieu that we live in….well most of the time that is,considering that part of time which we spend in the Inception like dreamy limbo(read as we sit during lectures at class). 😎

Whenever there’s a Quiz around in the locality,lets say INDIA in this case,the most Professional Quizzers,lets say two of my Roommates in this case,begin doing all sorts of research on the history of the event,it’s organisers,the quiz-master,the sort of questions asked,the chances of repeats,etc..etc..The gimmick here is that these guys take in overwhelming data that they can logistically predict who’s gonna win(typical in case we consider, for example ,the logistics and probability of,say Team India,winning (just assume!) the next overseas test cricket match series with the current squad).With names of eminent quizzers from all over South India being repeated and tested on paper for their probability to win,I can at least say that I know these guys theoretically,though not practically i.e formally.

What I could make out from this observation was that the quizzing world is getting slugged with a workaday set of quizzers who are always giving the Non-Quizzers a run for their money in the local quizes.

So what if we have a small subset of the entire population of the world always interested in quizzing while the rest of the world sits yawning at them during the finals and the same yawning population answers MAHAMATTI (Tamil slang for WORSTU!! 😉 ) questions asked by SRK/Surya on the Idiot-box with so much vigour like having had Getafix’s (or Vitamix depending on which translated edition of the books that you read) Magic Potion???

This is what made me think of the causes in the neighborhood,i.e the local quizzing community at my current educational establishment:

a)The quizzers are fairly constant in numbers,i.e approximately 12 in 3rd year,5 in 2nd year and probably 4 in 1st year of their UG study.These guys are well informed and share the info from each quiz with each other regularly and so are in a better position to answer questions when repeated elsewhere.

b)The Quiz Club that officially exists only tolerates some specific members to host each session and hence other members don’t have a clue about the Question prior to the session.

c)The official Quiz Club sessions are unpredictable as regards schedule.

d)There are more number of non-regular Quizzers and Quiz enthusiasts who would like to attend quizes though they sincerely reason that they have no time to spend at the quiz club after a hard 9hour class day or that they have other more important academic(as in classes or projects) or non-academic (as in birthday treats or hobnobbing ,etc. 😉 ) activities to pursue.

e)We have regular,or at least almost regular sessions of informal quizzing at our hostels with different quizzers hosting the session by keeping us racking our brains with twenty to forty questions.

Considering all the above circumstances reigning here,an idea came up – Open Source Quizzing (let’s call it Quizzing Open Source,abbreviating it to QOS and not QoS packets that they refer to in case of ICT lingo).

In QOS,any random guy,it could be my workaholic dad or my schizophrenic neighbour uncle or the xenophobic watchman from a local school or the illiterate gardener from your friend’s bungalow or the politically incited local unemployed or the college nerd or the leery dog-owner from down the lane or anyone for that matter,would come up and host a surprise quiz.Everyone specialises at knowing something,cos’ he/she somehow feels connected to that specific chunk of data.In QOS,we aim to achieve to unlock and share that specific data so that it comes out and reaches the general public facilitating both non-quizzers and the core quizzers.

By QOS,the quiz host gets the experience of a quiz by being the centrepiece of information and thus,this psychologically fillips his/her confidence in participating.The same guy who seldom attended former pro quizes,now begins turning into a part of the core quizzing circle by simple motivation.

Recently held hostel quiz sessions with the ideology of QOS have yielded the first set of fruitful subjects -Spikey and Jammy.The next prospective subjects being-Delhi and his pals Suso and Tito.

As of now,the QOS needs more experimentation subjects to determine the success-rate.

“Neither knowledge about the question nor the answer is important.What is important is why the question was asked in the first place!!” *

*-just as Einstein said (I think) ”It doesn’t matter when a war was fought and which side won by killing how many men.What is important is why the war was fought in the first place and how we can eliminate the future possibility of the same.”